This guide is intended to help Lvl 35+ Scholars farm the heck out of a place in the Lone Lands that has a prodigious drop-rate of Tier 3 Scholar items.

The place in question is named Naerost, and is directly East of Weathertop. The basic strategy is this:

1) Run the route designated (in blue) on the attached image [in a clockwise path], pounding away at the "delete" key (or the key mapped to "Select Nearest Item") to find Ancient Vases.

2) Farm the nodes.

3) Sell the drops (Torn Craftsman Diary, Faded Sindarin Passages and Cracked Dwarf Carvings) on the AH for an average of 10SP per.

4) Rinse, Repeat.

The Details:

The path outlined in the attached image will take you past 95% of the spawn points (indicated as yellow dots) in a timespan of about 3 minutes. Each full completion of the loop should yield an average of 3 spawns in any of those locations . This means in a timespan of 1 hour you should have approx 50 Diaries, 50 Passages and 50 Carvings.

Sold on the AH, 150 * 10SP = 1.5GP

Some Notes:

1) I've tried to indicate the majority of the *possible* spawn points on the map, however some of them are chests which yield crap for the most part, but occasionally will yield a scholar drop - vendor the majority of it.

2) In most cases you'll detect a node well in advance of getting to it... unless there are multiple people farming Naerost, I recommend sticking to the path and getting the node when you come to it.

3) I've found that the path/loop takes just enough time to complete so that new spawns pop up by the time you complete it... if you have a horse, you're not benefiting unless you're racing against another node farmer... even then, the time it takes to mount/unmount IMHO is a wash.

4) ALL OF THIS IS DEPENDENT ON YOUR SERVER'S ECONOMY AND AH PRICES FOR THE TIER 3 NODES. On my server, they go anywhere from 8SP to 30SP per, depending on the item. Check your local AH first, to see if you can benefit from this strategy.

5) Almost forgot, run the loop in a CLOCKWISE route, otherwise there are a few places that you won't be able to get around due to high blocking walls.

6) The spawn rate here seems abnormally high, and I've been able to farm the place - aside from 2 others on my server - fairly regularly since the Evendim update. Expect that once this info gets into the hands of the Devs that they will cut the rate.

7) I've indicated that you should be Lvl 35+ to farm Naerost - this is because at Lvl 35 you'll be ignored by the MOBs there, which will make farming the nodes that much faster.